A Peace Plea for South Sudan

It would be satisfying to celebrate the peace deal signed in South Sudan as an end to the warfare that has been the lot of the land’s 12 million people for most of the past 60 years, including the extraordinarily cruel civil conflict that has ravaged the country since independence in July 2011. But at least eight cease-fires have collapsed since civil war erupted in December 2013, some within hours of being signed, and both sides have already accused each other of continuing attacks. Only continued pressure by the United Nations and the United States on the South Sudanese leaders will give the peace any chance.

This is not a problem that the United States can sidestep. Uniquely among African nations, South Sudan owes its existence largely to Washington, starting with the George W. Bush administration. But it did not take long after independence for South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, to go to war against his vice president, Riek Machar, dragging their different ethnic groups and their foreign supporters into a vicious struggle that has inflicted rape, the slaughter of children and other terrible crimes on civilians, forcing more than 2.2 million people from their homes.

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South Sudan's president, Salva Kiir, in hat, in 2011 with Riek Machar, who was his vice president. They signed a power-sharing agreement this month.CreditPete Muller/Associated Press

On his trip to East Africa in late July, President Obama gathered leaders of South Sudan’s neighbors for a meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at which they agreed to threaten the warring leaders with international sanctions if they did not agree to a peace agreement by Aug. 17. Mr. Machar signed on the day of the deadline; Mr. Kiir came around only on Wednesday, citing strong reservations, after the United Nations threatened “immediate action.”

The agreement calls for a power-sharing government, with Mr. Machar again as first vice president, for 30 months, with an elected government to follow; an immediate cease-fire; the departure of all foreign forces; and the creation of a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate human rights abuses.

That amounts largely to an attempt to get back to where South Sudan was before the fighting. But it does not resolve the basic problems that have undermined all previous cease-fires. There is the hostility between Mr. Kiir and Mr. Machar, and between their Dinka and Nuer ethnic groups, the two largest in the country. There is also the long history of warfare, before and since independence, that has rendered South Sudan a militarized society.

Though aware of the weaknesses of the deal, the Obama administration has said that it would “hold to account,” and support sanctions against, any leader who breached the agreement. This is the right approach, and Washington must not waver. The administration must be equally stern with South Sudan’s neighbors, some of which have taken sides in the strife. It is incumbent on those who gave South Sudan independence to now see it through to a lasting peace.